"MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT BEING A PRIEST IS EVERYTHING CONNECTED TO THE SACRAMENTS.

I love offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. I love preaching. I love hearing confessions. There is nothing that I know of that can compare with getting to be a part of someone’s Great Story, the story that God is calling His children to live."

Our large-but-not-massive parish has five seminarians and our liturgy would probably make Fr. Blake run in horror. (That's not a judgement on our liturgy--it suits me just fine, though I would drop the Haugen and Hass if it were up to me.)

I don't get the "they changed the liturgy and look how the pews and seminaries emptied"-crisis-think. Isn't a broad cultural shift the much more likely culprit? England is almost entirely secularized. Going to seminary here is pretty counter-cultural. Imagine what the reaction there must be. I wonder if "I'm going to seminary to become a celibate Catholic priest" gets roughly the same reaction in England that "I'm going to India to live in an ashram" gets in Mississippi.

I'd say Australia is more comparable in culture to England than America. We're struggling here. Pumping numbers up by bringing in men from India, Nigeria and Vietnam. Some great candidates among them to be sure, but it's not a long term solution. As Blake suggests, "like attracts like" and even though they're young, an excess of foreigners in seminaries discourages the locals. Pray for vocations.

Veritatis Splendor

About Me

... My idea of what I am is falsified by my preoccupation about what I do. And my illusions about myself are bred by contagion from the illusions of other men. We all seek to emulate one anothers imagined greatness....If I do not know who I am, it is because I think I am the sort of person everyone around me wants me to be. I have asked myself whether I wanted to become what everybody else seems to want to become... only to realize that I do not admire what everyone else seems to admire. I have only thus begun to live after all... But it is very late. - Adapted from a quote by Thomas Merton

Holy Face of Jesus

Show us your face and we shall be saved. "Each soul is the object of My special love. That is why I am so grateful to those who are resourceful and bringing back sinners to Me. Keep this in mind then. I gave My life for them in the most atrocious torture, for these poor beloved ones. A humble repentance, and they are already on My heart. So speak gently to them. Speak with tenderness. A brusque remark could drive them farther away." - He and I

Prayer to St. Michael

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the malice and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.

Disclaimer

I declare that I have no intent to acknowledge, distribute or encourage anything contrary to Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and the Apostolic See. I submit myself and all the contents of this blog to the judgment of the Church.

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